Remember When the Warriors Stunk? These Guys Had a Front-Row Seat

Image

The Warriors’ Stephen Curry warmed up as Bob Fitzgerald (striped tie) and Jim Barnett did a pregame television broadcast last month. Barnett has been Golden State’s TV analyst since 1985, and Fitzgerald has done play-by-play for the team since 1993.CreditCreditPeter DaSilva for The New York Times

By Scott Cacciola

Nov. 16, 2017

OAKLAND, Calif. — Long before the late-night theatrics, the record-setting pyrotechnics and the 3-pointers from outer space, the Golden State Warriors wandered through the basketball wilderness. They cycled through coaches like disposable diapers. They started players on 10-day contracts. They went years without sniffing the playoffs.

Tim Roye, who began calling games as the Warriors’ radio play-by-play voice in 1995, recalled hearing from fans. They would send handwritten letters, which showed how much they cared. The only problem was their team stunk.

“Man, were they angry,” Roye said.

Given the events of more recent seasons, few people on the planet have greater perspective on the team’s emergence as an all-universe juggernaut than Roye and two colleagues who have been staples of the Warriors’ radio and television broadcasts for decades: Jim Barnett, who has worked as the Warriors’ TV analyst since 1985, and Bob Fitzgerald, who has done play-by-play of the team’s games since 1993. They appreciate the highs.

“Because we know what the bottom looked like,” Fitzgerald said.

The bottom looked like 12 straight losing seasons, from 1994 to 2006, a period Fitzgerald assessed as “general hopelessness.” The bottom looked like nightly opportunities to set records for offensive futility. The bottom looked like the coach getting choked at practice by one of his players. The bottom looked like a sad stream of 20-point deficits and endless amounts of airtime to fill.

Roye and his producer developed a midseason ritual of taking the station’s interns to lunch. After pointing out the obvious — things were looking bleak again — he would remind everyone that they still had an obligation to put out the best possible product, even if that sometimes felt like a slog. Fitzgerald and Barnett shared that professional attitude.

“You’re like a chef who’s trying to cook a good dinner, but maybe the ingredients aren’t quite quality,” Fitzgerald said. “So you do your best with what you’re given to feed the masses.”

In a twist, Fitzgerald’s first full season as the backup play-by-play voice for the Warriors’ radio broadcasts was full of promise. It was 1993-94, and Golden State went 50-32 before losing in the first round of the playoffs. Fitzgerald figured 50-win seasons would be the norm.

“It was like, ‘This is going to be awesome!’” said Fitzgerald, who moved from radio to television in 1997. “But then they decided to not be any good for a long time.”

In hindsight, perhaps it was a sign of the dark days ahead when Golden State christened the 1994-95 season by visiting San Antonio — and indoor fireworks set off the arena’s sprinkler system. A small flood delayed the start of the game by nearly an hour. The Warriors won, but that was false hope: They finished the season 30 games under .500.

Image

Tim Roye has been the Warriors’ radio play-by-play announcer since 1995. Roye considers the 2000-01 season a low point. The Warriors, who finished at 17-65, won twice in the last 10 weeks of that season.CreditPeter DaSilva for The New York Times

Roye does remember one season as more difficult than most. In 2000-01, the Warriors started out 15-33 — which might not sound all that amazing, except they had won all of 19 games the previous season and were now on pace for 26 victories. They proceeded to win just twice over the final 10 weeks of the season. Roye acknowledged that the monotony of defeat sometimes wore on him.

“This has always been such a great job, and it’s the N.B.A., you know?” he said. “But sure, there were probably a couple of weeks where you were like, ‘We have how many games left?’”

Even when the broadcasters were stuck in the abyss — Fitzgerald recalled one game in 2004 when the Warriors set a record by scoring only 2 points in the fourth quarter of an overtime loss to the Toronto Raptors — the team’s extended stretch of playoff-free basketball was not without its charms.

“I liked it when we were crummy, because we got to talk on TV more,” Barnett said.

The broadcasts back then had fewer sponsors, Barnett said, which meant games were less cluttered by advertising. For example, Barnett viewed the few seconds between free throws as fertile ground to share some insight. (Barnett likes to talk.) But now Fitzgerald, his on-air partner, is almost always reading some type of promotion between free throws, and Barnett has to clam up.

“We never used to have that,” Barnett said.

Barnett, 73, had an 11-year playing career before he retired from the N.B.A. in 1977. He endured his share of tough seasons. He was a second-year guard on the San Diego Rockets when they went 15-67. He later played for the New Orleans Jazz, who were 5-42 when they traded him to the Knicks.

“I firmly believe that you’ve got to be resilient as a player,” said Barnett, who added that he never took his N.B.A. career for granted. “Even when it’s bad, it’s still good.”

The same goes for his approach as a broadcaster. Even when the Warriors were horrible, Barnett treated each game as a fresh start. He gave himself pep talks.

“I always said, ‘O.K., here’s how they can win tonight,’” he said. “I think I kept up my enthusiasm that way.”

Roye, too, paid his dues. As a young broadcaster, he roamed the country. He called minor league baseball games in the New York-Penn League. He called college basketball.

“I survived a lot of buses to nowhere,” Roye said.

So he was deeply appreciative, he said, when he was hired as the play-by-play voice for the Sacramento Kings in 1989, just as the Kings were bottoming out. Roye spent six seasons in Sacramento before he took his current job in 1995, back when the Warriors were rivaling the Kings for Western Conference incompetence.

Image

Barnett and Fitzgerald chatting with Curry as he stretched at their table before a game at Oracle Arena last month. CreditPeter DaSilva for The New York Times

Roye wound up working 17 consecutive losing seasons as an N.B.A. broadcaster before the Warriors finally broke through and advanced to the playoffs in 2007. By then, he had become, through no fault of his own, one of the league’s foremost experts on bad basketball.

“People would ask me, ‘Who’s going to win the title?’” Roye recalled. “And I’d say, ‘I’m not sure, but I can tell you who’s going to win 30 games.’ I knew those teams really well.”

In recent seasons, of course, everything has changed. The Warriors have won two of the last three championships. With their collection of brand-name stars, they have a chance to dominate the league for years to come.

“We have to be ready to do our jobs,” Barnett said, “because everybody is watching and everybody is listening.”

In the process, the team’s broadcasters have become Bay Area celebrities in their own right. Roye is stopped by fans at the grocery store — and he works on the radio.

Fitzgerald said, “You’re more aware that a lot of your calls are going to be all over ‘SportsCenter’ and disseminated worldwide, because the Warriors are the story.”

With increased visibility comes scrutiny, especially on social media — and Barnett noted that some fans could be merciless with their level of Warriors expertise. He described this phenomenon as “micro-magnification.” Say Klay Thompson misses an 18-foot jumper. Barnett might post something on Twitter about how Thompson ought to keep looking for that shot.

“And some guy will tweet me: ‘Well, actually, from 15 feet to 19 feet on the right side, Klay Thompson only shoots 41.9 percent. But on the left side, he shoots 44.3 percent,’” Barnett said, pausing for a half-beat. “I mean, come on! He was still open!”

Not that Barnett is complaining. He and his broadcasting colleagues know they are fortunate to be chronicling one of the greatest spectacles in sports, and they come prepared for anything.

Not so long ago, it was hard to imagine finding a way out of the wilderness to reach this point. And now?